In the annual month-long citywide cleanup during May, homeowners and community groups are encouraged to pick up and clean up their properties.

City officials even are asking people to help out by plucking debris from ditches and along the roads, "so objects don't make their way to storm ponds or lakes," said Mayor Kathy Chiaverotti.

Green Up Muskego also is a good time to plant trees and flowers, Chiaverotti said.

As they did last year, Muskego police will help out by looking for properties with abandoned or unlicensed cars and trucks parked outside. (Such vehicles are supposed to be stored in garages or similar storage facilities.) Neighbors tired of looking at such vehicles are invited to call police.

April 23, 2013 12:30 p.m. | Monday's community engagement session was held to gather comments about proposed maintenance projects at all New Berlin schools, but it was Eisenhower Middle/High School that attracted the most comment - and it wasn't flattering.

For example, Kathy Quandt said kids are still getting electrical shocks in the auditorium orchestra pit, just as she did before she graduated from Eisenhower in 1980. Other comments suggested Eisenhower isn't up to snuff in the science department, in the auditorium or even in the restrooms, where paint is peeling off the walls.

One School Board member agreed Eisenhower's time has come for maintenance that has, in recent years, been focused elsewhere. Art Marquardt noted that when he joined the board a decade ago, the other schools had more than $100 million in deferred maintenance and nine school buildings that had severe needs.

At the time, Eisenhower was one of the best buildings in the district. Now Eisenhower is in tough shape, he said.

The School Board recently held a community engagement session focusing on the proposed Eisenhower projects. Through the engagement sessions, the School Board hopes to see which projects the community cares most about before it prioritizes the list according to criteria it already approved. The first parts of that list should come to the board in May.

April 19, 2013 3:02 p.m. | The carp, which some see as a lake villain, will now have a price on its head in Little Muskego Lake.

As an incentive to get more people to fish for the undignified species, the Little Muskego Lake Protection & Rehabilitation District will pay $500 "bounty" to each person wo catches carp previously tagged by the state Department of Natural Resources.

The lake district didn't provide an exact number of carp that will be tagged by the DNR and then put back into the lake. Larry Lefebvre, district chairman, simply put that number at "a couple."

The real point of the lottery-like bounty approach is to encourage carp removal in general. Carp eat the eggs of walleye, northerns and other game fish and stir up the water, which is bad for lakes and why the district is trying this new idea to get them out, Lefebvre said.

The effort - which has been used successfully in other lakes, including Eagle Spring Lake near Eagle - recently received the blessings of the DNR. The program will start as soon as the DNR is able to catch and tag the carp.

April 17, 2013 6:04 p.m. | By this fall, all the schools in the Muskego-Norway School District will have what is known as a man trap to make school entrances more secure against intruders, if the Muskego-Norway School Board has its way.

A so-called man trap allows school visitors to come in from outside, but then they must be seen and spoken to by office staff before they are buzzed into a facility's interior.

Muskego High School is already secure, the board decided, and man traps already exist at Lake Denoon Middle School and at Mill Valley Elementary School. Work has already been approved for Muskego Elementary School for this summer.

The School Board on Monday liked the entrance security plans for Lakeview and Tess Corners elementary schools, but sent the staff back to come up with a combined entrance option for the Bay Lane Middle School/Country Meadows Elementary School building. The middle and elementary schools share a building.

The board plans to look over the combined entrance option for Bay Lane/Country Meadows on April 29.

April 17, 2013 5:56 p.m. | Opting to let the Plan Commission find middle ground between a land owner and a neighboring restaurant owner, the Muskego Common Council has approved the rezoning of a small piece of property to again make it legally buildable.

The site is the former Shell gas station that was recently removed by Waukesha County on the northwest corner of Lannon Drive and Janesville Road. It will be rezoned from "business" to "downtown revival district," a new zoning category the city created just before the Janesville Road widening project.

The land owner, who lost so much of his land to the Janesville Road widening project, has no specific plans to build on the lot, but asked for the rezoning to make the property more marketable.

The owner of Tres Locos restaurant, S7505 Lannon Drive, is afraid that if the lot does become buildable, his business could be harmed by an encroaching new structure. The rezoning will allow a building to go up only five feet from the property lines instead of the normal 10 feet, the attorney for the restaurant noted.

Nevertheless, aldermen unanimously felt that the Plan Commission is a sufficient safeguard against such harm and approved the rezoning unanimously. Any issues will have to be dealt with by that panel when and if a building project is proposed.

April 15, 2013 9:11 a.m. | The New Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Greater Brookfield Chamber of Commerce will host a joint information meeting to review and discuss the proposed development of a new Walmart store in the 15300 block of West Greenfield Avenue in New Berlin.

The meeting will take place April 23 at Charcoal Grill & Rotisserie, 15375 West Greenfield Ave, New Berlin, in the lower level banquet room.

Free registration will begin at 7:15 a.m. with the presentation to start at 7:30 a.m., and a question and answer period at 8:30 a.m.

Because the new Wal-Mart is proposed for the corner on Greenfield Avenue and Moorland Road, adjacent to the city of Brookfield, the New Berlin Chamber has invited the Brookfield business community to join in this discussion.

The proposed development would occupy a 15-acre site, which also holds part of the Charcoal Grill & Rotisserie.

Flooding can be seen in a lot of places, especially along the Milwaukee River, Menomonee River and Root River. Check out scenes from along those rivers and other flooding photos from suburban Milwaukee.

April 11, 2013 1:38 p.m. | Waukesha County officials are reminding residents not to place propane cylinders in household blue recycling bins after workers at the county recycling facility found more than 100 in the first week of April.

Propane tanks can cause explosions during the recycling facility's baling process when materials are compressed by hundreds of pounds of pressure. Even when cylinders are empty, they remain pressurized and can explode when compacted.

In 2011, a cylinder exploded at the facility and caused a small fire. No one was injured.

Propane cylinder manufacturers usually include a tag with disposal information. Residents also can find local propane tank dealers to dispose of the cylinders at waukeshacounty.gov/recycling.

April 11, 2013 1:36 p.m. | A 21-year-old Sussex woman was charged with receiving stolen property while police continue to investigate an October break-in at a U.S. Cellular store in New Berlin.

Jamie C. Lupo was charged on April 10 in Waukesha County Circuit Court with receiving stolen property valued at less than $2,500, a class A misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of nine months imprisonment, $10,000 in fines, or both.

According to the criminal complaint:

City of New Berlin Police were called to investigate a burglary at a New Berlin U.S. Cellular store on October 13, located at 15460 Beloit Rd. The manager, Michael Lehman, told police that one of his employees closed the store at approximately 4 p.m. on October 13, but when he returned the next day to open the store he noticed $118 missing from a metal cash box.

Video surveillance showed a suspect entering the store through the back door at 5:48 p.m. The manager suspected Jamie C. Lupo, a former employee, was involved in the theft because the burglar did not pry the door open and seemed to know the location of the cameras. The suspect took the $118 from a cash box and also stole two used cellphones that the manager provided serial numbers for.

However, the suspect in the video surveillance tapes was not as skinny as Lupo, the manager told police.

A subpoena of the phone’s records showed they were activated by a “Jamie” under the account of Patrick C. Lupo on Oct. 15.

Lupo, who resides at W245 N6576 Bowling Green St. in Sussex, was already on probation after being convicted of possession of amphetamines, LSD, and/or psilocin in August 2012, according to online court records.

A city detective spoke with Lupo in jail and she denied having a key to the store. She told police she quit her job at U.S. Cellular after having problems dealing with her parent’s divorce and she had lost the key. She said she found the phone in her mailbox and assumed someone was giving it to her.

No one has yet been charged with committing the actual burglary of the U.S. Cellular store.

April 11, 2013 12:20 p.m. | One thousand donations of food to the Muskego food pantry during the five days of the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign is the goal of Muskego High School sports and entertainment marketing students.

The drive, which students are holding in conjunction with USA Today and Con Agra Foods, will be from Monday through Friday, April 15 to 19.

Muskego food pantry drop-off barrels are at Walmart, Muskego Tire & Auto, Kohl's, Sindic Motorcars and Pick 'n Save. Muskego High School also will have collection barrels where students can donate food during their first-hour classes.

Canned meats, canned fruits, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly are the most needed items.

To help publicize the event, the students created a Facebook page (search Facebook for MHS Food Drive) and a Twitter account, @MHSFoodDrive.

April 11, 2013 11:22 a.m. | New Berlin police are looking for the man who tied up employees at Goodwill Industries and robbed them at gunpoint Wednesday night.

The robbery occurred about 9:30 p.m. at the thrift shop, at 3540 S. Moorland Road. Police said a man wearing a ski mask held two employees at gunpoint, stole money, tied the employees up and locked them in an office before leaving.

The man is believed to have been communicating with a second person using a walkie-talkie radio during the robbery, according to a news release.

The man is described as possibly Hispanic in his 20s or 30s with a medium build. He was estimated to be between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall. He was wearing dark clothing and a ski mask.

April 11, 2013 7:00 a.m. | An open house to provide information on the proposed 150,000-square-foot Walmart supermarket and discount store in New Berlin, at the southeast corner of S. Moorland Road and W. Greenfield Ave., will run from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. Thursday, at Brookfield Suites Hotel & Convention Center, 1200 S. Moorland Road.

The open house will display the revised plans, and will include New Berlin city staffers and representatives from Walmart to answer questions.

The new store, if it wins city zoning approval, would replace a Walmart at 15333 W. National Ave., New Berlin, in Moorland Square Shopping Center. The new store would be larger, and would create an additional 50 to 100 jobs.

April 09, 2013 12:26 p.m. | An updated cost estimate of less than $400,000 to renovate the Eisenhower Middle/High School swimming pool, compared to the $1.4 million estimate the New Berlin School District has from its consultant, has been received from the pool's original manufacturer.

The renovations would make the pool deep enough to satisfy current competition requirements and address maintenance issues.

School officials had doubted the original $310,000 Chester Pool Systems estimate because it didn't include a larger pump to handle the extra water from the additional depth.

With the updated estimate, swim parent Russ Bellford contacted School Board members on Saturday pleading with them to consider the Chester Pools lower cost alternative to fixing the pool.

Bellford also asked them to consider factors that he says point to the possibility that some might want the pool costs to be so high that the Eisenhower aquatics program dies as soon as the pool has a major failure.

April 07, 2013 8:02 p.m. | South Milwaukee native Cecilia Margraff was crowned Miss St. Francis 2013 last night by reigning Miss St. Francis Colleen Mrotek at Saint Thomas More High School in Milwaukee.

The event is in its 49th year and is an official preliminary competition for Miss Wisconsin. Margraff will receive a $2,000 scholarship to the school of her choice.

April 01, 2013 11:44 a.m. | An English teacher at New Berlin West Middle/High School and a math teacher at New Berlin Eisenhower Middle/High School were named 2013 Kohl Foundation Fellows for their excellence in and out of the classroom.

Nominators described Eisenhower's Kasi Stiedaman as "one of those rare teachers that makes a huge impact on the lives of their students." West's Erin Schwane was described as "a statewide leader in the field and a valuable resource to in-service educators."

Schwane and Stiedaman will each receive a $1,000 grant, awarded by the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation, for their schools' use.

Fellowship winners are chosen for their ability to inspire a love of learning in their students, their ability to motivate others and their leadership and service within and outside the classroom.

Two New Berlin students also were named 2013 Kohl Foundation Excellence Scholars. They are Stephanie Seymour and Jacob Zimmerman, both seniors at Eisenhower.